The author is a Forbes contributor. The opinions expressed are those of the writer.

Loading ...

Loading ...

This story appears in the {{article.article.magazine.pretty_date}} issue of {{article.article.magazine.pubName}}. Subscribe

CODA Automotive

Kevin Czinger, chief executive of electric vehicle maker Coda Automotive, has his work cut out for him. Late this year he will begin selling a vehicle with an unproven technology under a nameplate not many have heard of, most of which is assembled in China. It will be quite a bit more expensive than its main competition, the Nissan Leaf, which is made by one of the world's biggest automakers. And the car is dressed in extremely plain (if inoffensive) sheet metal. This car won't be dropping people off in front of red carpets; it is not the car for the Tesla crowd.

Czinger gave me a ride in one yesterday. (He wouldn't let me drive because it was a prototype, not a production version.) It worked, it felt exactly like a small four-door sedan. It fit right in among traffic around Times Square, and it had that wonderful electric-car acceleration. But it will cost in the low $40,000-range, Czinger said, or $35,000 or so after federal and state rebates. That's about the same as the coming plug-in hybrid Chevy Volt and it's a whopping $10,000 more than the all-electric Nissan Leaf. (Not to mention it is almost double the cost of the cheapest conventional hybrids, like the Honda Insight, which don't exactly guzzle gas.)

Kevin Czinger, (via CrunchBase)

Czinger, of course, shrugs these concerns off, arguing the public is hungry for a safe, reliable, normal-looking car that doesn't use a drop of gasoline. His car does have some technical statistics to boast. Its battery pack is bigger than the Leaf's (34-kwh v. 24-kwh) and it is protected by a thermal management system that keeps the battery between 70 and 115 degrees Fahrenheit, which Czinger says will ensure a better driving range. Also, the Coda's battery can be charged at home much faster than the Leaf's because of its more powerful built-in charger.

(Both cars claim they will be able to go 100 miles on a charge, but range will vary a lot depending on how the cars are driven, the conditions outside, and how many gadgets in the car are being used. The Volt will go about 40 miles on a full charge, and it has a gas-fired motor that extends the car's range "several hundred" additional miles, according to GM.)

Czinger plans to sell 14,000 Codas in the 13 months between when the car first goes on sale in December of this year and the end of 2011. Half of those will be fleet vehicles sold to municipalities, utilities and other companies. The other half will be sold direct to buyers who test-drive them at places like shopping malls.

The car, built on Mitsubishi-designed underpinnings, will be assembled into modules in China, then shipped to a factory near Oxnard, Calif. to be completed. That way, the car will be said to be assembled in the United States, and Czinger can keep close tabs on quality and safety -- by far the most important issues for a new car company, especially one selling a new technology.

Czinger says 80% of the car was redesigned after a first set of crash tests in 2008 and he is shooting for four and five-star crash ratings when it is tested again in the U.S. He says Coda can break even selling 700 to 800 cars per month -- that's fewer than 10,000 per year, and a remarkably low number for a car company.

The company, which grew out of a predecessor company founded by Miles Rubin called Miles Electric Vehicles, is designed around the battery pack. With Chinese partners, the company has a plant in China that will be able to make 20,000 34-kwh battery packs annually, starting in 2011. The company is hoping to build a sister plant in Ohio with the help of a federal loan guarantee. Czinger says the company can boost battery capacity 100 times (yes, 100x), in a decade, and sell battery packs to other automakers.

Responsibility for the rest of the Coda -- the substructure, the electric motors, the body, the interior -- is all farmed out to automotive suppliers. That's probably part of why, despite what could be an impressive power pack under the hood, the car looks so plain.

The problem is, there's one thing that isn't quite so plain about the car: That sticker price. Czinger argues there's enough demand for the first electric cars that selling them won't be a problem. Then, he promises (predictably enough) that prices will come down. He thinks by 2013 a car with 150-mile range will cost in the mid-$30,000s, not including subsidies. He thinks by then there will be the infrastructure available to allow drivers to fast-charge their electric vehicles in 10 minutes or so. He assumes much higher oil prices will drive down the overall cost of ownership of electric vehicles. He believes the public will get ever more fed up paying for petroleum and sending dollars overseas, and ever more comfortable buying and driving electric vehicles.

He may be right, but that's a lot of ifs. Those will get cleared up, he says, when the rubber finally meets the road later this year. "We need to get cars in peoples' hands," he says. "We need to get those first 5,000 to 7,000 stories told."